Danae Hays Loves Her Wife and Southern Roots | It's Real with Jordan and Demi

you gotta figure it out with with the hat and I the rest of us have to deal with our with our hair um yeah yeah yeah so what with today what we got on here I I was gonna tell you if it makes you feel any better people tell me I look like Wayne's World so it could you could have that you know it's easy have you and your wife ever gone as Wayne and G for Halloween last year it was a it was a hit oh yeah easy costume you know the trick to Halloween to me is doing costumes that don't requ ire a lot of heavy face stuff yeah so that way you know like when you go to a Halloween party you know an hour in half the people got their costumes half on because they got some big ass mask or something what are you thinking about you know yeah yeah g was G was a no-brainer I just had to throw a different hat on and then Mandy my wife she just had to get some drumsticks and then we were ready to rock and roll party on yeah yeah part you famously sort of threw yourself into the world of stand up uh standup comedy after being this social media person and you kind of uh you know you you you went from uh I watched that that podcast interview which thing about comedians is that there's 7,000 podcast interviews of every every comedian available so I'm I'm GNA try not to rehash all of your past um bits from other other podcasts but you did go from doing a quick four or five minute set to doing an hour on tour just a couple years ago less than two years ago so how do you feel like your standup has progressed over that you know 18 months two years time yeah so I um I signed myself up for an open mic night at a coffee shop back in 2022 um it I I'll be honest with you having four minutes of a of an opportunity I found to be harder than having to come up with an hour long set because a four minute bit you know a joke has a hard time to develop I'm more of like a southern Storyteller type of and so sometimes it takes three or four minutes to set the joke up so I found like only having that much time is really difficult that's why I have so much respect for openers that are opening for you know they only get a five or 10 minute slot um for other Comics it's uh I think that can be sometimes more challenging than hourong set yeah you know um you say you're more of a story time which is there's a long um tradition in southern comedy of Storytelling com I remember when I was a kid my dad had uh Jerry Clower tapes um did your parents listen to you got some Jerry Clower my dad I grew up on that stuff my my dad is the biggest Jerry fan you could meet he just sent me this like hourlong tape from YouTube of Jerry performing at the Grand Old opery he's like check this out I think there's some stuff in here that you could pull from I mean yeah that's funny that you said that my dad's the biggest Jerry fan that'd be the most hilarious lame um comedy um controversy ever is if you started ripping off Jerry Clow and like someone on Tik Tok like starts calling you out like this was done in 1971 by Jerry Clow I have the proof here it is literally yeah I know and it's funny because you have to be so cautious like I can't watch a lot of standup because if I do I get really nervous that like you know I'm going to be inspired by a particular joke and then I'm going to rework it in a way that makes sense to my life and I don't want it to ever come across is like ripping somebody else off so I whenever people ask me do you watch a lot of standup comedians um and their work I I can't I also can't because I'm thinking the entire time about how I would have told that joke yeah yeah yeah the timing I I'm not a comedian but I I definitely have a sense I've done some comedy stuff here and there uh like on the filming side on the other side of the camera and I do find that I'm picky about timing it irritates me when someone says the inflections in the wrong beat or they you know they wait too long or something like that yeah or milking it too much you know you gotta love that that moment when a comedian realizes they got to laugh they didn't really expect so they're like yeah and then he was like yeah you know exactly yeah there's and that's that's the cool thing about playing like comedy clubs like I just did four shows this past weekend in two days and um it's funny cuz like you know it's the same set every night but you get to figure out you have four opportunities to figure out what your timing is going to work like on each joke so it's been cool to to do uh comedy clubs in an entire weekend so that you can work out little things like that versus just two shows every weekend yeah um do you how how's your comfort level Now versus you know when you started oh it's just like anything else you know I mean it once you start to get into that Rhythm and and your brain starts to recognize that this is a familiar feeling like you know exactly what to do if X Y and Z happens and and you just start to be able to take a deep breath but I remember when I when I first kicked off this tour my first ever hourlong set was back in the middle of February of this year so just a couple of months ago and I was like shoot I don't know if I can my anxiety I don't know if my anxiety can do this why did I sign up for this and by like the third and the fourth show my anxiety just slowly started to to tick downwards but yeah I mean it's it's just like anything else in life like once you do it a couple of times your brain just starts to really settle into it you find those Pockets now speaking of being nervous I don't like watching your prank phone call videos because they make me nervous I I just I remember when I was a kid and my friends wanted to do that I'd be like nah I'm good I did a couple times uh when I got in trouble once and that was it like and I was hold on I got a little piece of you get like secondhand anxiety fuzz okay yeah so so yeah so um I remember me and my friend Chris um he called like somebody and he was like this is the eye doctor uh you need to call me back and I was like somebody is gonna like get this phone call from their eye doctor and think something's wrong or they're going to be confused like you know I like thought too much about the repercussions of like the other end to to really do it well I I'm the same way which is why I yeah I don't know if I'd ever call anybody and pretend to be a a doctor but I do you know this last prank phone call that I put well two prank phone calls ago I posted about calling McDonald's and telling them I left my dog in the in the dining room if they'd call for it the whole goal was just to see if she would yell for the dog yeah and it's funny how it's the audience is like splintered in half you know it's got close to like 400,000 likes on Instagram so like 400,000 people loved it thought it was hilarious but then it also has a handful more than a handful of comments where people are like oh but I feel so bad for her she ended up reaching out to me on Instagram and said she was the one that answered the phone they got tickled over it they thought it was funny so you know it's funny you either get the one people like some people that absolutely love the prank phone calls that takes them back it's like nostalgic for or you get the other half and they're like oh God that makes me nervous I could never do that uh did you uh did you watch crank aners when you were a kid on Comedy no people always compare me to them but I've never I've never seen their stuff you're like quit asking about freaking Crank Yankers I don't even know what it is I grew up on Roy D Roy D Mercer he was a southern prank phone caller he uh fun facts about that guy he signed with I want to say it was Warner Records Warner record label um I think it was Warner but the year that he signed he had the highest um CD sales that year for and all he did was prank phone calls on the CDs nice is that I thought that was I thought that was a pretty cool little tidbit yeah yeah yeah do have you ever felt bad about one of your calls or felt you know regret or yeah yeah no I did a prank phone call on our podcast we do like prank phone calls every three weeks where we we used to let the audience members give us a recommendation of who they wanted us to prank phone call and they'd give us like some tidbits about the person so this girl reaches out and she's like hey I want you to prank phone call my best friend she just got a new car I think you can make it about her new car and she just traded in her old car at X Y andz dealers ship so I call her and I don't know why in my mind I thought this was a good idea because it it was the worst idea it sucked and it was mean after I did it but I called her and was like Hey we got your car and we realized that uh looks like there may have been a crime scene in the back of your car we might have to contact the authorities well she hangs up and then I get a call right back and it's from her dad and her dad is like livid and I was like sir I just want to let you know this was a prank phone call it was a horrible prank phone call I'm sorry uh her friend Katie told me to prank phone caller we're doing a podcast and he was like I don't care what you're doing that was that was awful and I'm contacting the police on you and I was like no sir I was like this was the prank phone call I'm so sorry and so I had to call her friend who recommended the prank phone call and I was like hey can you please call this girl please tell her it was a prank phone call and I'm so sorry she was like oh my God that's so funny I'll call her right now I was like it almost felt like you were the the butt of the prank the whole time or something like like she knew that the dad was going to react like that was like let me get D and the worst prank phone call I've ever done I've never felt so bad about something I was like that usually your prank phone calls are so innocent that one was just like the why would you choose to go that direction so yeah that was probably my that was my biggest regret when it came to prank Fone calling how do you uh you know you have all the these characters that you develop on your on your Tik Tok and Instagram um how do you Workshop characters to figure out if they're going to be on a video or not like how do how do they kind of how do they kind of Spawn I guess well I guess the last one was this um so my wife we have two horses she's gotten me into the equestrian the equestrian side of the world yeah and uh I remember one day I was at the um I was at the barn weather and this video popped up of this kid that was a there's a sport called hobby horses and it's where you ride a freaking like horse on a Bo wooden horse yeah broomstick horse and I remember I was out there and I just Mandy was on her horse and I was like oh you're such a great H and then I don't know one thing led to the other and then man was like that accent you do with ju where with the hobby horer is so funny we should do a video and I was like okay it's sort of that weird like um sort of German sort of Scandinavian sort of like just kind of ambiguous European accent it's just yeah it encompasses every single Accent on demand and and so I I posted a video with her and I coined her as Judy and um it's funny because it's now taken on this life in the equestrian world and I have these like world like National Champion Dr equestrian Riders following me because of Judy and it was the helmet it was the writing helmet yeah I I think that definitely adds to the character for sure you like released it sort of around the Kentucky Derby so maybe you caught maybe C some of that like Derby traffic you know yeah hope so yeah I'll take all the Kentucky Derby people I can get that's my uh that's kind of my my my dark past is that I rode horses when I was a kid and I did equestrian and I had like the little riding helmet um there's a photo of me I used to my mom I say my mom but I probably wanted these more than her as I wore those sort of like pattern colorful G Brooks button-up shirts like the sort of 90s country singer like I was kicks Brooks know yeah those are coming back orange you know stripes across some and I got a picture of me wearing one of those with a black riding helmet you know dude those those Western butt nups are making a strong comeback at least here in Nashville they are well you know I'm from Kansas City so it's like sort of not Southern but people think it's Southern and like it's my family's from the south and you know sort of like sort of semi Southern I guess you know sort of my upbringing that's the title of my um autobiography is semi Southern col semi yeah I feel like um I feel like Kansas City it always kind of gets not forgotten about with the southern people but if you told me do you think Kansas City is Southern I'd be like yeah I think they would be oh yeah yeah when well went to I went to college in Miami and Syracuse and everyone there is from like Boston New York they it's all the same Missouri you know um but yeah I I don't consider Missouri the South and we don't really have accents that's why there's a lot of like actors and broadcasters from the area um me being the most famous of course right up there with Walter kronite and Paul Rudd um dude yeah uh yeah so I I I I appreciate being the mid Midwestern kind of person you know I uh speaking of accents I majored in um telecommunications and I wanted to go into Sports Broadcast a jock major to have yeah totally yeah you play college softball it's like this is just like the segue to get like like Kinesiology all the half the athletes for like Kinesiology they're going to be gym teachers one 100 you're naming my entire softball team at this point yeah but my uh my telecommunications teacher she was like we really need to work on your accent like we need to it's it's just too thick and and I was like you went to Alabama right yeah I was like wellow that's the pot calling the kettle black right there but yeah I just remember her saying that and I uh I did my best I tried to do like some up talk and I was like this is just not natural this just ain't it what did you do in that period between graduating college and getting into social media comedy stuff that that like five or years what what was your life like yes I um I graduated and I got my real estate license like every uh Southern person that doesn't know what they want to do does you have a great Blazer collection every realtor has a great Blazer collection hell yeah I did but I never actually dress nice because it's uh the culture in like Southern Alabama like rural Alabama where I grew up you don't it it almost comes across as like uh you just never where I'm from You' just never wear a blazer to show a house you'd wear like blue jeans and like a t-shirt and some sneakers you know yeah it's like upstaging almost if you dress too nice but yeah so I um I did real estate for almost three years and then after that I got into uh Fitness coaching and I did that for about two years and during those two years I I started posting on social media like in the comedic space and then once comedy kind of took off for me I decided to hang up my fitness coaching business and just do full-time what kind of Fitness coach were you were you uh mean like you know drill sergeant type or were you more you can do it you can do it I was I was a you can doer I was like you've got this you know yeah definitely definitely not I don't have a mean bone in my body when it comes to trying to get people to do their work do you ever have any do you ever have a client where you're like this person's they're not going to get close they're going not even going to be here next week like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah but that's that's only because from the get-go it was it was just like ah I don't know if this is right but I'm willing to give it a try you got to put on that face you know yeah you know you can they've they've done enough work to get to this point right you know they've made a decision they were like talking to their spouse and they were like well Billy I think it's time you know the kids are out of the house uh you know I'm kind of I have some time on my hands I think it's get get myself back into shape right I you know the the thing that was so awkward is I had a family member reach out to me and they were like hey I really need your help so I gave them some I know and I did not want to work with family because this is I'm like this is too personal you know but she reached out to me nonetheless and I gave her you know the pricing on what everything looked like and then she paid we started to like get her set up of like what the first week was going to look like and then she uh hit me up and she was like all she said was hey I'd like a refund and I was like this is why I didn't want to work with family i' like a refund had you had you started workouts at all had you done no no we hadn't started anything all I had done is set her up with like grocery shopping lists and stuff like that and then she was like Hey I actually want to refund and I was like this is gonna be so awkward having to see maybe she was just using you for like the nutritional um guidelines and then like once she had that she was like all right I got the info I think I think you might be on to something I think that's exactly what happened yeah people take it people are taking advantage of your niess yeah that's that's why I gota I start gota go got to start getting mean I just I don't I just can't I just I just freaking can't I'm like the the biggest um which I'm working through this in therapy but I I am like the biggest people pleaser and I have to I've Been Working on you know making sure I'm taking care of myself especially as I'm getting into show business making sure that I'm you know taking care of me before taking care of other people but back then years ago I was very much into like I would rather be liked than be respected you know yeah so you wouldn't make a good Mafia Dawn hell no I'd be worse people be stealing from me left and right be like that's okay yeah go ahead like no you can have that yeah those three kilos are yours yeah I'm sorry were that was that my drugs at the beginning those are actually yours you can have that sorry about the misunderstanding yeah yeah yeah how often do you how much time do you spend on recording videos versus like real life do you stop a real life conversation and say hey this should be on camera or do you kind of plan out your your bits ahead of time where you have like a filming period yeah um I don't really like filming in front of other people like I'm if a friend that I feel really comfortable with is like hey this would be really fun to do as Judy the hobby hser like if we're at the barn you know yeah um but I've been very like Mindful and intentional about not making my friends have to be a part of the bit and stuff like that a lot of my videos are just me by myself just because I feel I just don't ever want them to feel like I'm using them or that their time doesn't matter but um when it comes to like filming content and stuff I have to be in a like a creative heads space to make these characters actually feel real you know um there sometimes are days where I'm like man it's been like four weeks since I've done a Sharon Jean which is one of my characters video I should prioritize her today and I'll start filming a video with her and I'm like wait I'm just really not inspired to do Sharon Jean today and the video just comes out not good you know so I I really try to be in a creative space when I'm creating videos and when I do get in those spaces I oftentimes create multiple videos one day because I'm feeling so good about it but yeah if I have if I if my back's against the wall and I have to go film something um and it and try and it try to be entertaining and funny most of the time it's flat so I try to just listen to that feeling you know and your your wife Mandy's in a lot of your videos and you even have like the joint YouTube channel um was that kind of thing thing that happened naturally where you guys were in these videos together or did you like ask her permission like you know do you want to be in part of this world or do you know like what what was that Dynamic like yeah even before I started in comedy we were sharing a lot of relationship stuff online um we both had an audience online for our fitness businesses um and then it just naturally the world kind of took a turn during the pandemic where things could be super casual online and you could just share like your day-to-day stuff and um we're always together and we both are very creative people so I think it just naturally happened um if there's ever a video that I film uh that Mandy's in I always tell her I'm like if you don't like that video I'll delete it right now you know and she's like yeah I actually just don't want to be filmed right now like and I don't I don't want you posting it right now either like if you could just post it in a couple of days from now that'd be cool but I don't feel like my stuff being online right now you know so we're really respectful with stuff like that because when you post something online then comes the comments then comes this then comes that and sometimes you just don't feel like um having a presence that day on social media you know yeah well it's good to have that healthy attitude I feel like um it helps that you're not 19 I think like I can't imagine people like who are in their teens early 20s now just feeling the pressure to be on all the time no no I we think about that all the time I feel like you guys don't have kids do you no no we don't and I I just think about these kids that popped off like you said when they were 19 years old and they like really popped off and and and gained a following and now they feel this immense pressure to just constantly be feeding that endless bottomless pit of of content creation you know which which is why I'm glad I'm not I guess like a lifestyle influencer you know where you have to be posting every single day about your lifestyle I'm glad that my content is based around comedy so that um and you're actually good at comedy because we all know those comedy people who have really terrible skits and they're bad at acting and you know you're not one of those people no no I I I don't think I am I'm that's a statement that's a statement yeah oh thank you thank you yeah yeah no but yeah I think that's um like an interesting Dynamic um I think the the weirdest things to me are the Tik Tok accounts that are based around a family like Mom Dad and kids and they're all doing skits all the time I'm like you're a 40-year-old man doing like a little um you know dance to a Fel song or something like like what what are you doing man I'll I'll be honest with you kids on social media this may go in a completely different direction but kids on social media having their entire lives on social media freaks me out like it it it uh I think if my parents posted me on social media as a child I I don't know how I would have thought about that as as I got older you know if having so much of a footprint on social media before I was old enough to decide if I really wanted that or or not you know which that's a whole different conversation but yeah kids kids being pushed on social media every single day it it I I think about that more than I probably should yeah it's it's it's it's just a kind of bizarre phenomenon yeah um we have to talk about your music of course you've gotten more into it recently um what what made you had you always had these sort of like country singer dreams kind of the back of your head a little bit I'm glad you I'm glad you worded it just like that because no I do not and I have I have to be like completely upfront like I I'm not trying to be the next Miranda Lambert or the next country artist I know I know my Lane I know my Niche I know my um glass ceiling of talent when it comes to singing okay like I know where that is I'm trying to serve a purpose of uh of just creating music that makes people laugh with an undertone of country roots and Southern humor and and all that jazz but um but it I will tell you this it's the most fun I've ever had in my entire life it's my favorite part of my comedy show it's it's literally I'm obsessed with making music with writing music with thinking about music um and it's so new to me but I can't I just can't get enough of it you better be careful you're going to be a serious country singer before you you know know it you're gonna be doing the CMAs you know duetting with uh Pam Tillis or somebody could you could you imagine oh man dude I'm I'm telling you though like I set out on this journey when I moved to Nashville I got bit by the bug because a lot of our friends are in the the entertainment World here and in the music world specifically and um I was like you know nobody's doing country comedy and I grew up listening to yeah Ray Stevens exactly um Rodney Carrington and even Jeff Foxworthy people forget how big Jeff Foxworthy was at his Peak was massive him Larry the Cable Guy Ron White um yeah so BL the Blue Collar Comedy Tour there's a lot of music involved in that um but I was like you know I don't I don't think there's ever been I could be overlooking them but I don't think there's ever been a female to do country comedy and um and it's been really fun you know getting with these songwriters that are so used to writing beautiful pretty songs and then they get to sit in this room with absolutely no rules um and they get to color outside the lines and uh it's been fun watching them because they get a kick out of it they're like dude this is so free how do you feel about contemporary country music like especially like the Bro country like the the back roads camping trip kind of you know ride my pickup truck kind of country the Luke Bryan brand of country country yeah how do you feel about that kind of are you kind of how much of your music is lampooning current current um styles versus more just being funny so we've been very intentional myself and and uh my producer Alex Klein we've been very intentional about wanting my record to have a specific sound and that sound is you know nothing nothing past 1995 I am obsessed with um 1970s country music 1980s I love Conway Twitty Vern godon um I'm just really big into to Old School country music uh John Conley so I want to preserve that that sound and I think it also plays into the fact that it's funny music is because sonically it sounds so beautiful and it's nostalgic and you're listening to it and you can really hear all the instruments it's not overly produced and then all of a sudden you're like man this song's sounds really [ __ ] cool and now all of a sudden we're talking about something out of left field you know so yeah the comedy is able I think the sound also props the comedy and the the punchlines and stuff like that up I would I would love to hear you do like a full 70s um country politan Bill uh you know Billy Charelle kind kind of wall of sound with the strings like the George Jones He Stopped living the day kind of like dramatic you know that'd be so sweet yeah yeah I'll have to I'll have to send you some demos um some of the stuff you know I've only put out two songs and they were both totally different from one another the first song I ever put out was before I really got I mean I think we wrote it in April and I released it in June and I just wanted music out because I was like I want to just see how this does and it sounded like a like a Jimmy Buffett Kenny Chesney sumers song with a man it um and then I waited far too long to release another um song but when I did I released a song called all it takes and it has like a 1990s uh Terry Clark kind of feel to it where it feels like it's kind of like when the music was starting to get a little poppy in the country yeah back in the 90s early 2000s um and it's funny because they're totally different my favorite of the two is Road hard because it's right on the money funny you can tell there's a lot of um double anras and innuendos in it all it takes was almost the feedback I got from it was that's a great song D and like no like if you don't listen to the the the yeah I'm like I don't need it to be a great song I need it to be funny and we realized by writing that song that the song needs to be funny from verse the first verse all the way through the chorus not setting up the first verse as the punchline getting into the chorus otherwise it comes across as too good of a song and not a comedy song Oh interesting so you you so you're saying that you're too good is basically what you're saying I'm saying I just wrote this song real quick and all of a sudden it it just sounded as good as Trish ear would just right out of the gate no I'm saying some of the some of the feedback I got because what I don't want is it to be like oh is D trying to be a country artist that's the worst yeah that's such a hard line to walk when you're doing either acting or comedy and music is like how serious is this yeah right because that's what I don't want I don't want that conversation of is Da trying to be a country artist I'm like oh God that's so cringey no which was never was plan all along was a sneak in through the back roads of Comedy Tik tock and become the next country Superstar my three-year plan yeah yeah yeah that's definitely the three-year plan next next to uh getting a number one hit on the on country radio but well speaking of Terry Clark did you uh float the idea of maybe going the the Stetson the 10 gallon hat route instead of the the ball cap route for the for the music stuff I tell you what Terry and I wrote a song last mon month together and that she's going to duet with me are you being serious yes I tell you what you'll have to just wait till that music video comes out oh man do it you might I deadass when I was making my notes like two weeks ago when I first booked this show is I like one of the things I was like hat Terry Clark question mark like I was like yeah you have to wait because I have a see people always say whenever I was her for Halloween this past Halloween um and I wore you know I have the short dark brown hair and I wore the the black hat with a black suit and um because people always say when I wear a black cowboy hat they're like you look like a Terry Clark doppelganger so when we wrote this song this past month um I was like Terry I've got some ideas for the music video and I think it's gon to be I think it's gonna involve two black cats she's like I'm I'm iconic yeah all you need all you would need is a Clint Black cameo yeah video yeah nothing black hats the whole time yeah black hats yeah um no I actually I I don't know if you you know the the uh musician Shamir uh the singer Shamir but uh he grew up on Country we were he was talking about like the hunks and hats era like Clint Black and Allan Jackson and I don't know if you call G Brooks a hunk but you know there was that that was that kind of that yeah and I was always a big Dwight Yokum fan I liked we didn't know that at the time he was covering up his lack of a hairline but that that kind of forboding low lwh hanging hat yeah totally that really worked that I think that's the look I would go for if I became a country singer I would go for like the low totally right above my eyebrows you know I always I always like G Brooks's cowboy hat because it was real like whoopy it was like out here versus like you know like was just like a big bow yeah you mean it didn't go up on the sides as much yeah it was just like flat yeah yeah I don't know who sh I felt like yeah let's do let's do a breakdown of different cowboy hat yeah you know I don't think I ever owned a real legit nice cowboy hat I had like the cheap like Rodeo you know those people from the north don't know what the cheap Rodeo hats are when you go to the rodeo and there's like a stand with like the big stack of like like cheap wicker cowboy hats I had I had one of those dude my wife just bought when we were living in Texas she bought a ston hat they're so expensive oh yeah like I think it was like $450 for did she get it shaped like where they put it on the thing and they yeah yeah and it I was just like when she when she bought it I was not expecting the price tag I was like shocked by it so yeah nice cowboy hat that like really holds its shape and you know is made of um whatever they're made out of I know there's so many different layers there's like what uh Dalmatian fur yeah Bieber I think is one but yeah yeah they're expensive how much do you miss softball I don't you don't at all no I don't did you view it as a job towards the end of your career was it just like an obligation yeah I I think I had done it for so long and my body was tired and um I think I was just ready for something new man I really do I I I miss the thing that I miss the most is like the car rides with my dad to in front practice and like having a reason to spend quality time with your parents because you know as you get older it's it's kind of like drop-ins you know you go and you you see them for like at their house but like being able to like hop in the car with my dad and drive an hour at practice and then spend four hours with him at practice and then an hour back home and so your dad your dad was your coach yeah how was that Dynamic was was did you did you at times you like I wish my dad wasn't my coach or did you did because I was the same when my dad was my coach baseball Co well so yeah I mean there was definitely moments where I was like oh you know like God he's so hard on me but I would do it a thousand times over again I mean like I said the the lessons I learned from from playing the game of softball I think translate more than anything to the entertainment business I mean you there's so much resiliency and grit and being able to Pivot on your feet when something doesn't go your way instead of pouting about it taking a lesson learned from it and so that you set yourself up for a better situation the next go around um you know you start traveling with people like your opener my guitar player my man manager my agent and those all become your teammates essentially and just learning how to take care of your teammates and making sure that they're taking care of you all those things translate over to the entertainment business so I learned a thousand times from the game um I don't miss the game but I miss the moments I think the most with with my dad what an analogy I feel I feel moved that that you're a good Storyteller you're a good Storyteller thanks R appreciate that no so now that you're you're getting you're getting I would say you're as your celebrity how often do you get recognized when you go out in public now oh I feel so weird talking about this kind of stuff because it it feels I don't know it just feels weird but um it's new because it's new or yeah I guess I don't know I I I in Nashville which I mean even when I was on the road this weekend I I I don't think I've been to a public place coffee or going into Walgreens or something where somebody doesn't come up to me me and they say I follow you on Tik Tok or um I follow you on Facebook and that's even been a new one for we I've started on face you should have like little Jolly Ranchers in your pocket so when someone says they follow you you get to give them a Jolly Rancher is like a reward for following thank you so much yeah I'm a hugger I gotta stop doing that because I will just immediately my first response is just to hug these these people and I will just because I just I'm so grateful for them you know what I mean and I I just my first reaction is just to be like let me give you a hug you know and well I'm glad we're getting you before that drugs and the money corrupt you you know we're getting like the the before the downfall um drug drugs make listen I'll tell you this taking drama me makes me nauseated uh too too many cups of coffee makes me nauseated so I think it's qu you start seeing monkeys on the wall and stuff you're just like I think I can honestly say that are not for me simply because of my nauseous stomach God gave me a very puny stomach so well with the um with the more notoriety comes offers and and I'm sure you get DMS for endorsement deals you know whatever um but are are you are you Fielding like tv offers are you like what what do what's the next step in your career now that you're doing the tours and you're big on social media yeah oh I just filmed my first ever movie um a couple of months ago um and that happened after social media popped off the casting director filmed me through Tik Tok so that was like a direct direct line um can you talk about like what the movie is or is it like top yeah yeah it's a it's a romcom um you know I think it's right now it's in the editing stages and then after that comes pitching it to you know different streaming platforms and who's going to pick it up but it's a it's a romcom and I got to play a doom day prepper character in The romcom and she's she's a very zany character she's like uh like a Kate McKinnon style kind of like weird Barbie esque in that pocket you know um but yeah so that one should be picked up and hopefully bought and by next year so that'll that'll be weird but also really fun to to see that come to life do you have acting aspirations is that a a a real pursuit of yours yeah acting is uh uh believe it or not acting has been what I've always wanted to do above anything else were you in school plays and stuff when you were younger no I've uh I I was too scared it's so funny this all all this social media stuff and stand up comedy and all this I've really had to get over a lot of internal fear and stuff like that now I'm finally in a head space to where I'm like I don't give a damn what gets in my way I'm running after it with my hair on fire but it took a lot of it it took a lot of internal dialogue and thoughts and conversations to get to this place but no I never did any theater or anything like that um I tried out for a school play and I had two lines which was where's Sally and apparently that I didn't say them well enough so I didn't I didn't get to play oh man um yeah no but i' I've been doing acting acting classes since I moved to Nashville because I knew I was like I'm doing it and I'm going to be ready when it happens um I love the attitude yeah GL to yeah I'm really big into go ahead are you big like uh positive thinking like do you read self-help books you said you're in therapy how like how how much of like reinforcement do you do self- positivity I am like I could talk about this for hours but I am all about energy and and manifestation and visualizing the life I want um I just I've been really blessed because I have a friend that's also really big into that and we have a lot of conversations about it but she once told me she was like when you can realize that your energy on a cellular level has more power than you physically hitting a hammer and a nail into the wall is when you'll realize the power that you have in your own life and the energy that you're just pushing out into the world the universe and I thought this was so powerful the universe doesn't know right from wrong it doesn't know success from failure it only knows what you're telling the universe so if I'm constantly saying I'm in a friction State of Mind versus a flow State of Mind the universe wants to continue to give me things in my life that's going to cause more friction because it thinks that's what I want um so I just I I made this huge shift in my mind about three years ago and it's funny three years ago is when my life started to change that I'm going to start to exude energy I'm start I'm going to claim the things in life as if I've already achieved them I'm going to lay in my bed at night and vision ual the life that I want what it would be like to headline Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and um like I've already claimed that I know it's going to happen there's not a doubt in my mind that it it it won't happen I don't know when it's going to happen but I've already claimed it and so now I just live in this state as I'm already that person who's able to do that and when it comes it'll feel like deja vu for me but I'm I'm just really big in energy work and and manifesting those things wow wow a a book for the people listening a book that really helped me to make that shift was called breaking the habit of being myself um or excuse me breaking the habit of being yourself um it's a fantastic book about the power of cellular energy and the the power of manifesting in your mind it's fantastic yeah I've been trying to be more positive with my thoughts and less self-deprecating and all that kind of thing and you know so I I I'm getting more in that direction so I appreciate I love that there yeah yeah yeah yeah because you know not to not to go this go into therapy on this but um a lot of times the first step is understanding where the Divide is that we cause ourself you know because that was me three years ago I was like what I know I want all these things but like why am I not achieving them you know and then I started to have to really pay attention to my thoughts throughout the day and then I started to realize oh my God I was having like 500 thoughts a day that were self-deprecating that were you know and and so just that awareness is like the the first thing that this book really talks about but again I could talk about this for hours but it's a it's it's a beautiful journey to go on do you have a podcast your own podcast yeah my my wife and I we um we do a couples podcast not for couples but it's called the refined and Rowdy show and we put um a new episode out every Wednesday I should have known that that's basic research that that's all right that's all right um but yeah so okay so but so uh that'll be it thank you so much for coming on the show uh we gotta wrap this up but um appreciate we went to a lot of different places today um really got a good whole picture of of of D Hayes so um anything you want to shout out that's coming up in the next so this will be out you know like in a like we're coming out in like you know mid June or so so got anything coming up this summer yeah we got a show July 19th uh in Richmond Virginia at the Dominion Energy Center that's going to be a fun one and then the next day July 20th uh we're going to charl toown West Virginia at the Hollywood Casino so those will be uh those will be some fun shows and then August 16th and 17th we're going back to Charlotte at the comedy zone you're gonna hit the blackjack tables we'll try man see what my luck tells you do you gamble do you do you uh do you when you hit the casino no no I don't what I'm doing so it's like throwing money out the window for me yeah it's good to know your limitations good to know your limitations yeah all right d thank you so much thanks man appreciate you all right talk to you later all right that was D Hayes you can check her out on Tik Tok and Instagram of course and on tour when she comes to your city all right that'll be it for me until next time we'll see you later